Just in the nick of time, the SNP have at long last – after cold calling almost every auditing firm in the country – found some new accountants. The small Manchester-based firm, AMS Accountants Group, must be hungry for a challenge: the Westminster group’s accounts need auditing in just over three weeks, while the Holyrood party’s accounts have a deadline of 7 July. Tick tock!
Commenting on this minor triumph, First Minister Humza Yousaf said:
We take our statutory obligations extremely seriously, so it is welcome news that AMS Accountants Group will complete the accounts for both the party and the SNP Westminster group. I am very grateful for the work of our new party treasurer Stuart McDonald in securing the auditors’ services. I also wish to thank our previous auditors Johnston Carmichael for their professional work over many years.
It might be fair to conclude that the Scottish National party have taken a downgrade in their desperation. The new auditing firm is significantly smaller than the party’s last accounting company: a mere 20-something staff compared with Johnston Carmichael’s 650-strong workforce. And, rather weirdly, the new auditors specialise in services catering to, er, dental professionals. Then again, tooth extraction might be less painful than going through the SNP’s books…
Deliciously, within moments of AMS Accountants being revealed as the nationalists’ new accountants, journalists discovered that the company has filed an overdue confirmation statement almost a month late – and hastily too, filing one within an hour of the SNP’s announcement. Mind you Ebrahim Sidat, the director of AMS Accounting, clearly doesn’t discriminate on grounds of politics. In 2014, it was revealed that Sidat’s other company, Signature Tax Advisors, donated £2,500 to Labour MP Chuka Umunna on behalf of his party. And it’s not just Labour – Sidat’s business has in the past shown support for former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. Clearly Sidat likes a challenge.
But the drama isn’t over for Stephen Flynn’s Westminster group yet: if the accountants don’t sign off their books by the 31 May deadline, the party risks losing over £1 million in Short Money. Can AMS Accountants rise to the task? They’re going to need to if Flynn wants to avoid letting his own staff go. All this follows a rather strange and public back-and-forth between the Westminster leader and his predecessor Ian Blackford on the matter, culminating in a rather cringe staged photo of the pair which convinced, er, absolutely no one that the two had put their past differences aside.
Forget the blue and white of the Saltire: these days the nationalists seem more concerned about the black and red of their accountants’ books…
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